Wine 9.0 Released With Initial Wayland Driver, WoW64 Taking Shape & Better Direct3D

[avis]

Sorry, on Windows you ship nearly every library. So it is a flatpak without deduplication and update mechanisms.

Flatpak is not a VM. It is more like a container but with interfaces(portals).

You're outright lying. Either you've not used Windows for decades or you've not used it at all.

I have dozens of Windows applications installed and only rare ones ship something and that's normally just Qt or ffmpeg which are not part of Windows.

7-zip - 0 extra libraries
WinRAR - likewise
IrfanView - likewise
Sandboxie - likewise
ImDisk - likewise
Far Manager - likewise
Microsoft Office 2010 - likewise
Adobe CS2 - likewise
MSI Afterburner - likewise
MPC-HC - likewise (aside from d3dcompiler_47.dll and d3dx9_43.dll which are the same that the DX installer installs for you)
OpenVPN - OpenSSL (not part of Windows) + vcruntime140.dll (not necessary but they are not installed by default in Windows)
Mozilla Firefox - ffmpeg (not part of Windows) + vcruntime140.dll and vcruntime140_1.dll (not necessary but they are not installed by default in Windows)

Too lazy to post the rest.

Flatpak is not a VM? Really? It ships an entire fucking Linux distro except the kernel. That's what normally called "light" (aka OS-level) virtualization. Almost the same as docker/LXC/OpenVZ.

It's so nice not to see the posts by ignored people. I've just noticed a quote posted to my message and oh boy of course it's nothing but slander and insults.

"Flatpak is not virtualization". Yeah, really, here's a Wikipedia article dedicated to "not" virtualization.

MyOwnFriend explaining the concept of the shared library to me? What a way to turn our dialog inside out. There was never any explaining, we were talking about different things. Anyways, he's on the black list as well.

[patrick1946]

Normally I would agree with you, but (unfortunately) this time specifically he's kind of right. Flatpaks are a terrible hack that, despite being "released" for almost 10 years now, still hardly work. Snaps are even worse. Flatpaks as a concept are fine. Myself and I'm sure many other people like the idea of simply downloading a single file and having everything contained in there... except that's not how flatpaks work.

1. You can't simply double-click a flatpak file you download and have it install. You have to install it via the command line.
2. Flatpak's, after installation, are no longer "a single file". They spread out into various places on your system the same as any application from the repos, making full uninstallation just as annoying
3. Flatpak's "main feature" of sandboxing causing 99% of it's incompatibilities and issues. The only way to get 75% of flatpaks running at all is by running them in the non-secure mode, and even then they often have bugs that just don't exist in the standard binary. EasyEffects is a poster-child for flatpaks as it comes pre-bundled with many filters, but the flatpak version refused to interface with my system properly, leading to a myriad of audio bugs that just simply didn't exist when I installed it through the arch repos. Same with every single other flatpak I tried.

And the sandboxing is, frankly, mostly unnecessary. Windows UWP apps are "sandboxed" because they run in a specialized runtime that's meant to be cross-platform between Windows and Xbox, rather than any specific security reason. Users aren't allowed to modify the runtime because then it breaks the entire point of the runtime existing. Flatpaks give the illusion of security, but no real security even 10 years after release.

And, of course, they're dog slow compared to native binaries.

I install nearly all my applications as flatpak and works really well.

And why do you want an installer? The repo concept is much better for staying updated than installer.

And the installer would do install files somewhere.

Flatpak is using ostree which is a git for binaries. That is so much better than your single file approach that I don't understand why you want it?

[dekernel]

What issue(s) do you get trying to run it? It seems nowadays that most desktop software works either out-of-the-box or with a few Winetricks verbs.

The last time I made an attempt, I could not even get through the installation before fatal errors were triggered. Now granted that was a year ago, but based upon the updates I see, I really doubt I would get any farther...but I guess I should try again. I understand that the gaming community is their big target so they address their needs first and foremost...just wish those of us on the business side of things could see some love

[spicfoo]

The last time I made an attempt, I could not even get through the installation before fatal errors were triggered. Now granted that was a year ago, but based upon the updates I see, I really doubt I would get any farther...but I guess I should try again. I understand that the gaming community is their big target so they address their needs first and foremost...just wish those of us on the business side of things could see some love

It's simply a matter of funding. Valve is funding the development to enable more games to work. "Business side" isn't paying anywhere near that for licensing. So you get less support.

[cj.wijtmans]

That's going to take even longer to reach feature parity. And even if it was 100% compatible, there's still finance boomers who know a thousand Excel keyboard shortcuts by heart and won't want to learn new shortcuts or (gasp) start using the mouse.

Crossover claims to be compatible with Office 365 - how hard can it really be to get decent compatibility in normal Wine, without a million tweaks?

it might be more work, but it will pay off more in the long term. especially for people who dont like the new online ms office suite.

[dekernel]

It's simply a matter of funding. Valve is funding the development to enable more games to work. "Business side" isn't paying anywhere near that for licensing. So you get less support.

Yeah, I know. That is why I was hoping CodeWeaver could maybe pick up the business side....just not sure the $$$ is there for them. A man can still dream.

[Daktyl198]

I install nearly all my applications as flatpak and works really well.

And why do you want an installer? The repo concept is much better for staying updated than installer.

And the installer would do install files somewhere.

Flatpak is using ostree which is a git for binaries. That is so much better than your single file approach that I don't understand why you want it?

I'm glad they work for you. I've tried about 30 different flatpaks and every single one has had issues that the native binary doesn't have.

One of the marketing gimmicks for Flatpak is that with it, application developers can package an application themselves and offer downloads from their websites similar to how Windows works, so you know you're getting the application straight from the devs how they intended it to be. This is *technically* possible, but requires installing said flatpak via the command line... hardly user friendly. And yes, I prefer the repo method as well.

I don't mind flatpaks "unzipping" as it were. Single-file approaches are inherently bad for many reasons (just look at AppImage). My issue is that they "unzip" into multiple folders on the file system all spread out, and sometimes multiple layers deep into obscure directories. Even on Windows, applications typically only use 2 folders (the binary folder in "Program Files", and the data folder in %APPADATA%... if we ignore the registry) and Flatpak was an opportunity to start storing all of an application's crap into just one or 2 folders that are easily accessible and easily removable if desired. In fact, I think I remember that being one of the original goals, but I've not heard anybody talk about that in a long time.

And yeah, atomic upgrades via ostree are definitely nice. I have no complaints about that.

[Weasel]

I don't love Flatpaks either for some of the same reasons mentioned in that article but that doesn't mean they're "terrible crap". They work and have the advantage of being able to install apps in the Home directory. So if you're someone like me who has Home on a second drive, then you could reinstall your OS and all of your Flatpaks apps and settings will be installed and available immediately. That's a very attractive feature and is only possible because some of the same libraries installed on your system are duplicated in the home directory.

Or how about not installing it at all and just copying it where you want like portable apps on Windows huh?

[kurkosdr]

i think times is better spent improving libreoffice.

Doesn't matter, as long as Microsoft can keep evolving the OOXML standard (which they can), LibreOffice will always have to play catch up, so, for people whose job involves opening and saving OOXML files with zero formatting issues (for example because they work for the marketing department or whatever), having the latest version of Microsoft Office is a necessity. People whose job doesn't involve opening and saving OOXML files with zero formatting issues can use LibreOffice, it has gotten surprisingly good at opening OOXML files (but again, they can't provide an 100% guarantee).

[-MacNuke-]

1. You can't simply double-click a flatpak file you download and have it install. You have to install it via the command line.
2. Flatpak's, after installation, are no longer "a single file". They spread out into various places on your system the same as any application from the repos, making full uninstallation just as annoying
3. Flatpak's "main feature" of sandboxing causing 99% of it's incompatibilities and issues. The only way to get 75% of flatpaks running at all is by running them in the non-secure mode, and even then they often have bugs that just don't exist in the standard binary. EasyEffects is a poster-child for flatpaks as it comes pre-bundled with many filters, but the flatpak version refused to interface with my system properly, leading to a myriad of audio bugs that just simply didn't exist when I installed it through the arch repos. Same with every single other flatpak I tried.

1. And nobody said that Flatpak offers you that. Flatpak is the thing in between a distribution package that only works there and an AppImage that offers no support for repositories for updates.
2. Nobody said that too. Flatpaks are installed. You can share them as single files yes. And they don't "spread". Everything is in /var/lib/flatpak or ~/.local/share/flatpak depending on your installation choices.
3. I use many applications through Flatpak on ArchLinux and every single one of them works just fine. So 75% is just false. Sure. The sandbox does cause some trouble here and there. No questions about it. But you know what? I even start Flatseal after every new application installation and even make the sandbox tighter! Guess what: The applications still work fine!

And if you say your Flatpak applications are dog slow compared to the native one that I would ask for proof. I don't see any difference at all. And I use Steam, GOG and WINE through Flatpak too.